[RadicalTurnip]

I believe you can also set your archers to "hold and attack" and the two rounds they're holding, they'll fire (I believe, I don't have the game in front of me to test) and then run forward to engage. Of course, this means your archers are trying to engage the enemy, which is *no fun* unless they're decent troops as well. If you can be sure that they're going to be stuck behind your front-line guys when they engage, they'll run as far forward as they can, and then start firing again. FF is reduced a lot when the archers are only firing a few squares ahead of them. Again, this is a very niche use.

Has anyone had them set on "guard commander" and then retreated the commander after a few turns? I believe the archers would stay on the field (assuming you had extra commanders to command them), but they may run forward to engage, I'm not certain. Anyway, this may be a nice way to time archers better as the commander can move forward to rejoin the army much faster than a bunch of scattered bowsmen.